[3830] ARRL June VHF K2DRH Single Op-All Modes LP
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Tue Jun 14 03:35:53 EDT 2022
ARRL June VHF Contest - 2022
Call: K2DRH
Operator(s): K2DRH
Station: K2DRH
Class: Single Op-All Modes LP
QTH: EN41vr
Operating Time (hrs):
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
6: 669 187
2: 74 53
222: 22 18
432: 28 20
903: 9 6
1.2: 12 10
2.3:
3.4:
5.7:
10G:
24G:
-------------------
Total: 804 284 Total Score = 254,464
Club: Society of Midwest Contesters
Comments:
The station was in fairly good shape despite me not being able to do much tower
maintenance yet (I’ll probably pay for that soon). I have not been climbing
yet since my accident last year yet, but getting stronger all the time. You
don’t bounce back so quick in your 70s. My 2304 and 3400 were out of
commission. Apparently have problems in my relay box on the tower for both
bands. Steve at Demi got my 3456 retuned to 3400 and back to me in time for the
contest but I have not been able to work on the tower box yet. So I went with 6
bands working. An intermittent bad SWR has been showing up in my 6M 2x11 array
and I course it’s not on the ground. I was hoping it would be OK with low
power. It was OK for most of the test but finally failed completely Sunday
afternoon. The other 3 antennas mostly filled in the slack, but I probably
missed some PNW and NW mults when I didn’t have a way to quick switch when
they called. Can never have too many 6M antennas!
Saturday dawned with a dead 6M band and none of the great 2M and up tropo we
have seen the past few weeks here in the MW to the SW (it came back Monday,
sigh). Still 2M wasn’t bad. All day it was pretty much a FT8 slog with some
rovers and locals actually getting on SSB and calling. Basically crummy. I
had some Es to the NE late in the afternoon that put a few in the log but it was
weak and had no depth despite the big east coast players being S-7/9 or so. I
was doing my SO2VFO thing and called N0URW about 100 miles to the west of me in
my grid when I saw his signal pop up. After we worked on 6M stations started to
call in. They were for him not me, but he was gracious to let me share a few.
I dropped back down but kept a Slice on him – he had a steady pile and I was
CQing to a handful of callers - if that! Again on the fringe sigh! All
afternoon had been hearing lightning from local pop up Thunderstorms to the west
and by dusk they had consolidated into one larger storm that was slow moving and
hung around for hours.
Working 2M SSB I could hear stations trying to call me that normally I could
pull out but were buried in the crashes and precip static. The SDR takes it out
the best of any radio I’ve ever had but still frustrating to say the least.
New popups kept forming and making things miserable. 6M was S9 for a while and
even the baseline on 432 was jumping up and down by a few db. FT8 was able to
penetrate it better so I did mostly that, but it got real lean real quick.
Phoned a few and we ran some bands. I was able to complete my MSK144 skeds
despite the mess, mostly because the stations on the other end were big guns.
By 1AM the noise got really bad again and I had to give up and go to bed with
barely over 200 Qs in the log. Easily missed out on a half dozen 2M mults.
The morning was better and I woke early at 5:30 AM to make up for lost time.
There was not a lot to be had, but what there was went in the log pretty easily.
K0AWU EN37 and I have a long standing 4 band morning sked that we used to try
on CW then go to JT65B but tried Q65 30C this time. Much better! And we could
still see the airplane scatter enhancement on 432. The morning was slow slog
again chasing rovers and doing FT8. Put another 100 or so in the log that way.
2M was decent but really slow and still hard to QSY but getting better using the
new $DXCALL <message> macro. I was also trying to use the QSY system some
of the East Coast clubs like the PackRats use with a single letter for ARRL band
designator and a second letter or number for mode (like $DXCALL BV 200 for QSY
to 2M SSB at 144200), but it needs more catching on. I was more successful with
$DXCALL QSY222 – and sent several stations to FT8 on the next FT8 band that
way – unfortunately some I could have easily worked SSB if they understood the
new system. I really hope that works out and more folks keep doing it!
Sunday around 1200Z I got some decent Es prop to TX (they had been hammering for
some time so it was a lot of S&P and a few short runs). Things were
looking a lot better but no great rate. It died down after 2 hours and I went
back to chasing rovers and FT8. Did about a half hour of chasing CW on 6M
something I rarely do. I’m an old Tech and CW on 6m is reserved for weak
rovers, slow microwave Qs and non-contest DX. But I S&Ped for mults on CW
interleaved with FT8 while I was having dinner. The band was open to others on
FT8 DX from Eu and JA (I heard a few but not enough to pursue – did work a few
in my pileups such as they were). While the CW was mostly stuff I’d worked
already I was surprised to hear lots of seasoned HF contesters honking away
working each other at CW speeds to make a VHF Tech sweat. First time I think I
ever heard that during VHF test. I saw lots of CW while I was “running” and
SO2VFO – maybe should have set the other slice to CW more often. Have to get
my speed back up I guess.
Around 2300Z it ripped open to FN40 something grids in a big way and then up and
down the coast to the south and into FL. Finally decent rates (but not great,
lots of QSB!) There were lots of trashy NE stations but I was able to keep away
from them and apparently I run pretty clean because I kept getting crowded out
and had to move around a bit. I was getting 30 over reports so it was hot. I
had all 8 antennas in for 20dbd gain – who needs a KW! (well maybe for DX) No
2M Es though, it was over my head. Saw AF1T loudest on the band and 20 KHz wide
again like last year. Must have a hellofa QTH! Ran it until 0200 when I
stopped to run rovers and got in some FT4 time. It’s really great when there
are lots of stations on FT4 and goes pretty fast! Great to see that happen! I
was trying for 807 Qs (for obvious reasons) but fell short at 804. Good times!
73 de Bob2
Contest: ARRLVHFJUN
Band Mode QSOs Pts Grd Pt/Q
50 CW 10 10 5 1.0
50 FT4 32 32 14 1.0
50 FT8 78 78 53 1.0
50 MSK1 7 7 5 1.0
50 USB 532 532 110 1.0
144 CW 1 1 1 1.0
144 FT8 47 47 25 1.0
144 MSK1 3 3 3 1.0
144 USB 23 23 14 1.0
222 FT8 12 24 10 2.0
222 USB 10 20 8 2.0
420 FT8 15 30 12 2.0
420 USB 13 26 8 2.0
902 CW 3 9 1 3.0
902 USB 6 18 5 3.0
1240 CW 6 18 4 3.0
1240 USB 6 18 6 3.0
Total Both 804 896 284 1.1
Score: 254,464
1 Mult = 2.8 Q's
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